On Saturday, January 24, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a registered nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital and a member of AFGE Local 3669, was murdered by Department of Homeland Security agents in Minneapolis. Pretti was killed less than three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent murdered Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, also in Minneapolis. The day before his murder, tens of thousands of working people in Minnesota, including many members of UE Local 1105-GLU, participated in a historic Day of Truth and Freedom, a mass non-violent action demanding that ICE be withdrawn from Minnesota, the likes of which our country hasn’t seen in eighty years.

These tragic killings, along with those of Silverio Villegas González in Chicago in September and Keith Porter in Los Angeles in December, are an unfortunate but unsurprising outcome of the militarization of immigration enforcement and the Trump administration’s use of armed force to suppress dissent.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has pursued an agenda of mass deportation, setting an arbitrary quota of arresting 3,000 immigrants per day. In order to increase their numbers, ICE has been targeting people who are “playing by the rules,” including withdrawing legal status from documented residents [1] and even arresting people at green card interviews [2].

The Trump administration has attempted to justify its immigration crackdown as a crime-fighting measure, targeting “the worst of the worst” violent offenders. However, David Bier, the Director of Immigration Studies at the conservative Cato Institute and a former senior policy advisor to Representative Raúl Labrador (R‑ID), has conclusively demonstrated [3] that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than those born in the U.S. (including welfare fraud [4]). 

The Department of Homeland Security’s own data shows that very few of these people had a criminal record, let alone a record of any violent crime, and rather are being stripped of their habeas corpus rights. 

ICE’s targeting of virtually anyone who is not white and English-speaking — including, ironically, Native Americans — exposes this agenda for what it is: a naked expression of white nationalism.

In communities targeted by ICE, networks of working people based in unions, community organizations, and churches have stood up to protect their communities. In these situations, teachers’ unions like close UE ally the Chicago Teachers Union often take the lead. Working people from all walks of life have patrolled their children’s schools, delivered food and other necessities to their neighbors who are scared to leave their homes, and confronted ICE agents as they attempt to kidnap their immigrant neighbors, co-workers, and students. It was for committing such selfless acts of solidarity that both Good and Pretti were killed.

All working people have a stake in standing up for immigrant workers’ rights. As the UE officers noted in June [5], “As our union and the rest of the labor movement have learned over the past half-century, the real purpose of immigration enforcement is to maintain a permanent underclass of workers afraid to stand up for their rights — which drags down wages and working conditions for all workers.” Among those arrested and deported during the recent ICE surge in Minnesota have been members of SEIU Local 26 and UNITE HERE Local 17 [6] whose leadership has improved the lives and working conditions of all workers.

ICE has become, in essence, a private army accountable only to President Trump and his closest advisors, willing to brutalize and even kill those who oppose its agenda, including American citizens.

Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to various cities last year, and his recent threat to invoke the Insurrection Act to send troops to Minnesota [7], show a disturbing willingness to employ the U.S. military to suppress dissent — a hallmark of authoritarianism. The people who serve in our National Guard and military did not sign up to use force against their own people, or to enforce conformity with an extremist agenda. Tragically, two members of the National Guard were shot, and one killed, during their unnecessary deployment in Washington, DC last year. No one serving in our military should be asked to carry out illegal orders, or put themselves at risk, in the service of domestic political agendas.

As we know from the history of resistance to authoritarian regimes in other countries, the labor movement, with our ability to stop work, has a special role to play alongside mass protests in the streets. On January 23, the labor movement in Minnesota did precisely that, leading a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” which saw tens of thousands of working people gathering in subzero temperatures to demand ICE leave the state. If our country continues to slide towards authoritarianism, more such actions will be necessary.

ICE is not a hallowed American institution. It was created less than 25 years ago, as part of the militarization of immigration enforcement during George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.” An unaccountable private army of the executive is not necessary to carry out any kind of humane immigration policy, and it is incompatible with democracy and freedom.

We join UE Local 1105 in demanding that the agents who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti be held legally accountable [8]. We reiterate the demand, made by rank-and-file delegates at the most recent UE convention [9], for “the complete abolition of all ICE operations.” Furthermore, we join our close ally National Nurses United [10] in calling for a no vote on the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that is up for Senate approval this week and demanding that Congress abolish ICE entirely. We affirm the statement made by the UE officers in June [5] denouncing “the unconscionable use of the U.S. military against our own people” and warning that “if we wish to preserve our democratic freedoms, working people will have to be prepared to defend them through action in the streets, in our workplaces, and at the ballot box.”